


Topstock and Face Your Feelings

by Seltzer_In_Shadow



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Bathroom Sex, Boss/Employee Relationship, Bulge Sucking (Homestuck), Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), M/M, Minor established Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Nonbinary Roxy Lalonde, Past Bro, Public Sex, Slow Romance, Smut, Voyeurism, Watersports, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:42:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24185344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seltzer_In_Shadow/pseuds/Seltzer_In_Shadow
Summary: Karkat Vantas is a Grocery Manager in Training who doesn't have much going on outside of work and romance novels.This all changes when he takes up a stranger's proposition for a "randevu" in a restaurant bathroom. Dave Strider might have lied to get a job but he sucked bulge like a boss. Which he kinda is now. Karkat's boss to be exact. With a big secret and an even bigger crush.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	1. HIS BOY FRIDAY

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self-indulgent AU I think of when I'm at work to pass the time and help me hate my job less. If you work in a grocery store (especially right now) you're probably not getting paid enough. I feel that man, stay safe. 
> 
> Thank you to Fay_the_gay for betaing and listening to me constantly rant both about Davekat and my job.

It was a truth universally acknowledged, that Karkat Vantas never went out on Friday nights. Granted, he didn’t go out most nights, but after a year of being Eridan’s #1 grocery bitch (as his friend Rose liked to call his Grocery Manager in Training position) he had accepted that this was just part of the job. FreshGrub was a nightmare on Saturday and Sunday, and going out the night before a shift that, more likely than not would turn into 12 hours, was not a great idea. 

Right now, however, universally acknowledged truths were being thrown out the window as Karkat sat stunned at his desk looking at his schedule for the upcoming week. 

“What the fuck?” He scanned the Excel doc with his name and hours on it, checking the lines and making sure his eyes weren’t just tracking wrong or he was just going crazy. Which honestly wouldn’t have surprised him. “How?! Wait..why?!” He kicked his feet out to wheel his chair around towards Kanaya, who was standing at her own desk. 

The Wellness manager was used to her friend shouting to himself at his desk in the corner of the small office space she and the other department managers and managers in training shared to do orders and admin work for their store. Seeing Karkat whirl around though she knew she was in for a tangent. She prepared herself by taking a sip of her mug of tea and scanning the troll’s face. He looked more worried than anything, but she had a feeling what he was so flustered about so she decided to play coy. 

“TCME not accepting your credits again?’ 

“What? No! They’ve been better about that late-you know what nevermind that. No, Eridan gave me Friday night off and all of Saturday! ALL OF IT.”

Kanaya looked surprised at the amount of time but then smiled. “Ah. Yes I may have mentioned something to John about you not having a weekend day off in quite a while. You know, as an example of how hours should be more evenly divided on the schedule throughout the company, and how all managers should be bearing the weekend load and not shirking it off on their MITs. I didn’t think it would happen this fast though. John must have had a talk with Eridan pretty soon after that for it to be on the next schedule.” 

Karkat looked angry then panicked. “Fuuuk Eridan’s going to think I came to you to go to John to tell him to give me a weekend day! I didn’t even need one! I was fine!” He put his head on the desk suddenly feeling an onset of a migraine, and thinking about the snide comments Eridan was bound to make at him tomorrow morning. 

The scarf wearing, self righteous, bulgeflop would probably say something like “OOoh Karkat! Can’t handle the weekend Eeh? Suuure would be a shame if someone were to say, take your place mmmmh? Someone maybe a little more cut out for the pressure? You know we could always use more morning stockers. Suuure you’d have to use quuuite a high ladder but you do just fine stocking out don’t you?” 

However, the Eridan tirade in his head was cut short when he felt Kanaya’s hand on his shoulder. “You should trust me a bit better than that dear. I made sure John wasn’t to mention any names in particular. Look you’re not the only MIT with a break coming up.” She pointed at the excel sheet on the screen in front of them. Sure enough Jade from produce and two of Kanaya’s own wellness MITs had weekends off coming up as well. 

“Besides,” she said, stepping back to give Karkat more space as he scanned the doc, “you _do_ need a weekend day off. And Friday night? You’re coming out for drinks with Rose and I.” 

Karkat let out a half irritated, half relieved sigh, “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Of course you will. Rose would drag you out of here by your horns if you didn’t” She paused before adding, “And I’d happily help.”

The rest of the week went by as normal with not a single comment from Eridan about his weekend shift. Sure there were plenty of other shitty remarks but Karkat was used to those by now and sort of just took them in stride. As long as he got his shit done he knew he was doing good enough. Eridan’s standards were bullshit anyway. At least that's what Karkat was telling himself as he sent his end of shift email to Eridan and logged off for the day. He turned around to find Kanaya had already gathered her bag and shawl and was waiting for him. "Ready to go? Rose is going to meet us there. She's 20 minutes away from District, which should give us plenty of time to figure out a place around here that you can actually stand." She smiled while she said all of this, but the comment was not lost on Karkat. He had a reputation for being a bit picky about atmosphere on the few rare occasions Kanaya, Rose, and him all actually _did_ get to go out.

He followed her out of the office, and they both nodded and said good night to the few coworkers they could make eye contact with who weren't busy dealing with lines and bagging. Once out he started his response. "Look. It's not my fault that everything is so fucking expensive around here, and yet somehow they can't even manage to have enough seating so that every mouth breather and their tinder date isn't back to back with the table next to them!"

They crossed the street and Karkat led the way across District. Not _The District_. The sign to the pretentious shopping center was sure you knew there was no "The" to be had here. There were however plenty of high-end boutiques and name brand shops along with a variety of restaurants and bars. While Karkat led the way to a place he could actually stand, Kanaya texted Rose the location. 

They arrived at The Ramen House and immediately saw the place was already packed. Right, Friday night. He’d forgotten people usually crowded places like this when they had things like weekend days off. Still holding the door he turned to Kanaya to tell her they should probably just go and check out some burger place only to realize she wasn’t next to him anymore. He also noticed the host podium was empty. A quick scan and he found his friend in the back of the restaurant chatting up either the host or a waiter (he couldn’t tell really) to see if they had a table available. He saw them point toward the bar which was still fairly open and Kanaya gestured to Karkat to follow. 

He made a face, but really didn’t want to argue in the doorway so he let the door close behind him as he made his way to the bar and grabbed a seat. At least he wouldn’t have to be back to back with some after work happy hour group. He saw Kanaya pick up her phone, which he guessed was Rose, and looked over the drink menu while he waited for her to hang up. It didn’t take long, well long by their standards anyway. 

“Rose will be here in approximately 7 minutes, give or take parking. She advised us to order ahead,” Kanaya said as she unwrapped her place setting before spreading the tissue out on her skirt. Karkat considered doing the same, but realized he’d probably just end up dropping it like always. 

“I’m surprised she actually got out on time. Guess Fairlington had a slow night?” Karkat asked, handing her a menu. He kept his closed, already knowing what he was getting. 

“No, actually quite the opposite, but they were well staffed enough that she felt like they could handle it on their own. She also mentioned something about your self imposed early bedtime and how she wouldn’t want to keep you up past ‘crabby hours’.” 

Karkat winced. “Did she really say crabby hours?” He asked skeptically. Kanaya looked over the menu but smiled. 

“No. You’re right she didn’t, but I figured it was a much more palatable summary for you than,” Kanaya paused before changing her expression to a forced, less expressive one, mimicking Rose, “before Karkat sequesters himself in hopes of achieving the eight hours of sleep he desperately cherishes, and denying us his late night tangents we all love so much.” 

“Oh Kanaya that was a terrible impression. I don’t sound like that at all,” Rose said, coming up behind the two and sliding onto the stool next to her wife. 

Kanaya rolled her eyes as Rose kissed her hand in mock reverence, mixed with a bit of actual reverence. 

“I’d say it was fairly accurate, wouldn’t you agree Karkat?” Kanaya said, pulling her hand away but kissing Rose’s cheek all the same. 

“No comment. And stop trying to bring me into your faux heteronormative foreplay bits! I get it, making fun of cishet marriages is fun! You’re cool and different! But whenever you ask me this it always leads into one of your discussions where you bounce your psychoanalyses of each other off me, and then I’m just in the middle while you two play tonsil tennis but without actually kissing like normal fucking people!” Karkat finally took a breath before adding. “Hi Rose. How are you? How’s Fairview?” 

“Oh it’s fine.” Rose said unfolding her napkin and immediately breaking apart her chopsticks. She eyed them carefully as she continued, “We have a new MIT who I’ve mostly shrugged off onto Jake. He really needs to work on actually training people as opposed to just assuming they know how to do things.” She placed her chopsticks down onto her salad plate and copied Kanaya in splaying her napkin on her lap. “Have you two ordered yet?”

“Nope. Kanaya got side tracked mocking you.” Karkat replied 

“Perfect,” Rose said, closing the menu. “I changed my mind. The Udon looks delicious.” 

They ordered from the bartender and she took their menus freeing up more space for the three to spread out a little more comfortably. Though it didn’t take too long for that space to be uncomfortably filled again by cocktails and steaming bowls of noodles. They caught up in between slurps (because honestly you’re gonna slurp ramen a little bit at the very least). 

“Okay,” Rose said, twirling her cocktail glass in her fingers as she spoke, “Let’s hear The Deets. How are things in the world of Grocery? How has Eridan managed to make your job somehow more complicated and vexing than it already was?”

Karkat sighed and put his chopsticks down. “Fuck. Where do I even start with that arrogant, lobefucking douche?!” He thought for a moment and then just decided to go off. “So he gives me a Saturday off, cool. Grrreaaaat. BUT HE EXPECTED ME TO GET ALL THESE ORDERS DONE BY MONDAY ANYWAY SO I STILL HAD TO COME IN EARLY!” He noticed his voice and lowered it again. “I mean besides the fact that he rarely shows up when he says he will. Never actually helps the team stock things out! Hasn’t done a single weekend order since I fucking started this position and blatantly threatens me with more work if I don’t do things on his blugewringing schedule he-” 

He paused wondering if he should really say what he was about to in front of a general manager, who, granted wasn’t his general manager but did carry a say in the region, and a department manager who carried a big say in his store. He reminded himself that they were these things sure, but also they were his friends and right now that’s what he needed them to be. He just hoped to fuck this wouldn’t come back and bite him in the ass. He sighed again and then continued. 

“-He keeps trying to make things pitch between us.” He saw Kanaya and Rose’s expressions both grow furious, but they didn’t dare interrupt. “Hell he’s done it IN FRONT OF JOHN! Blatant pitch flirting in front of a GM! Just because he knows John is too dense to pick up on troll quad shit!” He noticed his volume again and looked around for a moment quickly, realizing they were still at a bar relatively close to his store. Not seeing anyone he recognized he continued. “I’ll be like doing an order and he’ll come up behind me and whisper something like ‘I better work faster if I know what’s good for me, because if I don’t one of these days there will be consequences and I’ll be going fast for him in a different way’.” 

“That fuck.” Rose said suddenly before regaining her composure. She kept her attention on Karkat seeing if he wanted to continue. 

“I just laughed it off uncomfortably because I’m not dumb enough to confront pitch flirting when I’m angry. But I’m angry all the time so there’s that.” Karkat did the thing again where he tried to laugh it off, but his friends could see it was obviously bothering him. 

He looked at Rose and noticed she had her GM face on. Which meant he was either going to get a talk about The Company and how they take these things ‘very seriously’, or she was going to insist she bring this up to Jane, their regional manager. 

“Karkat I’m going to be honest with you because I may be a tad bias as fuck. Eridan makes some of the best numbers in the company and John sees that and likes that even if he knows he doesn’t always have the most...pleasant means to achieve them. Aside from that though he’s a forgiving person, and I have a feeling going to a higher-up is mainly going to lead to a slap on the wrist for Eridan and at best you changing stores or positions.” She watched the hope drain from Karkat’s face as she spoke.

“So it’s useless.” He said, looking down at his drink. “You know I knew all of that, but hearing it feel worse somehow.”

“No. It’s not useless but it won’t be easy and you will have to make a strong case for it if you want to actually see it through. I won’t bring this up to Jane because I’m not going to overstep my bounds here, but I think you really have so much more potential and I don’t want to see you leave because of him.” She looked apologetic when she said. “I’m sorry Karkat. You deserve so much better than this. If you need me to, I'll fight this with you, but no matter what you decide, to stay and take it or to fight or even to just leave, I’m here for you.” She gave a soft smile on the last part. Kanaya remained silent in firm rage. 

“You know when I took the position I knew the rumors that he went through Grocery MITs like humans go through hoofbeast juice, but I thought no problem! I’m used to being treated like lowblood shit I’ll be fine! I didn’t think he’d get creative with his bullshit here. He saw I didn’t react to his anger but he knows he’s making me uncomfortable now and he’s eating that shit up, instead of just eating shit. Which I’d love to just feed to him in a big sandwich along with all those invoices he gives to me an hour before they’re due to be committed.”

Kanaya finally spoke. At work she was organized, focused, handled the ebbs and flows of the day gracefully, rarely complained if ever. Outside of work she had opinions and rage and Karkat fueled her fire for that consistently. Right now she wanted to chuck her drink at the wall, run to Eridan’s house and slice him in half like overpriced deli meat.

“I wish he would just say it in front of me like he does with John. I’d put him in his place in a second. I want him to know he’s being watched! I want it to feel like it matters! I’ve seen the way he treats the morning crew and they’re all terrified of him.” 

The three of them grew quiet. 

“Fuck. I’m sorry. For unloading that on you guys. I’m pretty sure. “Hey Karkat come out and hang with us!” Didn’t mean “Hey Karkat, please just unload all your workplace angst on us like we're a fucking dumping ground for your emotional bullshit compost factory.” 

Kanaya spoke calmly and evenly, knowing her friend all too well at this point to try and pick apart his self depreciation tangent’s piece by piece. “Karkat we wanted you to come out because we missed spending time with you. Well Rose did, personally I’m sick of you.” She sipped her drink and rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. 

Karkat rolled his eyes back to her but smiled. “Sure you are. If I wasn’t at the store who would be around to hear you curse softly under your breath, which I think is the closest thing I’ve actually seen to you losing your shit there.” 

They ordered another round of drinks and the mood picked up again. Rose ranted about her AGM Jake a bit more. They all made fun of John and eventually, the topics drifted to more outside of work. 

Rose and Kanaya were arguing semantics over movie titles when Karkat felt the stool next to him move. 

“Is this seat taken?”

Karkat turned to meet the slight southern accent’s question only to come face to face with one of the most gorgeous looking pieces of douche shit he had ever seen in his life. His blonde hair was almost white though and the low red light reflected in it. His jaw was sharp and a few freckles dotted his cheekbones right under the douchiest pair of reflective sunglasses he could have ever picked out. Sunglasses? In a bar? At night? The worse though was probably that shit eating grin that continued as Karkat looked at him and forgot to speak, oh right fuck. 

“Uh. Yeah. Shit I mean no, it’s free. You can sit there.”

“Thanks,” the blonde said, smiling again as he slid onto the chair. His thigh grazed Karkat for a minute, and he said, “Sorry about that,” in a way that made it seem he was not sorry about that at all, Karkat couldn’t say he was either. Fuck. Was he really this touch starved? Or was he just really this horny? Both probably. 

The blonde turned to the bartender and ordered a margarita with a sugar rim. Ha really? Guy must have bad taste. He then saw what Karkat was drinking and said “and one more of whatever he’s having, on me.” Karkat looked at the bartender and said “actually I’m pretty good with this one right now.”

The blonde frowned. “Oh shit sorry, I should have asked. I just thought you know it’s what you do when you get a fancy new job and want to feel like you’re gracious hot shit to every gorgeous stranger you meet.” He turned back to the bartender. “If he does want anything else you can put it on my tab. If not though we’re good. Thank you kindly.” 

Karkat would have blushed at the compliment if he wasn’t so busy trying to put together the blonde’s sentence. 

“Uh. Thanks for the offer though and congrats on the new job, I guess.” He turned to go back to Rose and Kanaya but froze when he found the blonde whispering in his ear. 

“Want to know a secret?” His breath was warm and Karkat smelled a whiff of some sort of body spray deodorant combo that was like chemical apple, cedar and douche musk. Somehow though it was...nice.” 

“Sure, ” he said, turning back to the stranger. 

The blonde was smiling like he had just won the conversation lottery. He was talking to Karkat though so that definitely was not the case, Karkat did not correct him on this. 

“I lied on my resume and in the interview. Like 100% I have no idea how to do this job.”

This was definitely not where he thought this conversation was going. He was curious though. 

“Okay I’ll bite. Why on this globefucking earth would you actually apply for a job you had no experience in _and_ want to bullshit your way through your workday over and over again living in the office space-like cubicle tomb of your own lie?”

“I really needed a job man so I applied everywhere. This one pays well enough and has great benefits so I figured fuck yeah that what youtube and google are for man. Not to mention, I’m charming as fuck so you know that’ll get you places.” He lowered his glasses a bit to briefly show one red eye and winked. 

Red eyes. Humans didn’t really have those did they? That was probably why he wore glasses inside. Karkat thought of his own red eyes and warmed up a bit more to the clearly cocky, probably not all that clever, stranger in front of him and smiled. 

"Well good luck with that man. Charming is one word for it I suppose, but I don’t think it can get you just anywhere though. You still have to show that you can do the fucking job and keep it.” 

“Oh I can do the fucking job. _And the fucking job.”_ He wiggled his eyebrows at Karkat who immediately went to turn around, one of these fucks, of course. Sleep to the top. I mean whatever it takes, sure, but Karkat wasn’t quite feeling that context right now given his current situation. 

The blonde watched his face change “Well good luck with that man.” and Karkat turned again. 

He had just gotten his back to him when he felt the stranger whisper to him again. 

“You know I don’t really know how to do this but you’re really fucking cute and I want to suck your dick. Meet me in the bathroom in five if you’re game to get a piece of this hot mouth action.” He turned back to the bar and pulled out his phone. Which Karkat didn’t see because he was still taken about by the wordiest fucking proposition he has ever heard in his god damn life. So he hadn’t been implying sleeping to the top..he had been implying..fuck this guy was so fucking corny...

He felt the stool next to him become vacant and heard the bathroom door next to the bar open and close. “You okay Karkat?” Rose looked at the troll who was blushing like he had just been propositioned to have his bulge sucked in The Ramen House bathroom. 

“Uh yeah. I’m fine. Sorry. I’ll be right back.” 

He slid off his stool and went towards the bathroom. Pausing at the door. 

What the fuck was he doing?! Was he really so desperate to get off that he would take up some random fuck for a quickie in the bathroom? Is this what his quad life had come to? The other guy either knew exactly what he was doing and was really good at coming across as a hot charming idiot with sweet ass lips. Or he was just a hot fucking idiot with sweet ass lips. 

Karkat thought of those lips and red eyes staring up at him suddenly, and he opened the bathroom door. Fuck it, why the hell not? This is what people did with Friday nights off? Right? Sure. He went with that and pushed open the door.

The blonde was waiting for him by the sink and smiled when he saw him. He quickly closed the space between them and drew Karkat in for a surprisingly soft kiss. 

Was this how these things were supposed to start? He felt his bulge twitch. Who the fuck knows but Karkat felt the blonde’s lips and immediately wanted more.

He broke away from the kiss and grabbed the blonde douche by the hands leading him into the largest bathroom stall he could find before locking the door. 

Fuck they were really going to do this. 

The stranger wasted no time. He quickly gave Karkat one more peck, which felt oddly romantic, (almost polite?) and strangely out of context. He began to trace his fingers across Karkat’s chest and torso, feeling a surprising amount of muscle. The fingers lead back up to his neck where he leaned in and lightly pressed a tease of a kiss before dropping to his knees and immediately unbuckling the troll’s belt. 

Karkat felt his bulge unfurl as his pants were pulled down to his quads and the blonde looked at the pointed red tentacle like it was a fucking firecracker popsicle on a hot summer day and Karkat was the hot ice cream man giving out the lengthiest of sweet phallic delights. 

“Oh fuck I said that out loud, didn’t I?” 

“You did.” 

“I talk a lot.” 

Karkat took the blonde’s chin and gently placed it in front of his bulge, offering the tip to the mouthy stranger 

“You do.”

The blonde blushed for a moment. but then licked his lips before taking the tip to them and sucking gently like that soft introduction of a kiss he had given Karkat earlier. The difference here was he then immediately wasted no fucking time taking the length of the troll fully into his mouth before pulling out in one full motion. Karkat almost shouted a moan but covered his mouth into his sleeve instead. 

He looked down at the blonde, who wiggled his eyebrows in response, before going back to taking Karkat’s bulge like he was a gold medalist in the blowjob Olympics. Karkat gripped onto his hair and closed his eyes hoping that would help him last longer than like a minute. But the sounds coming from the blonde were obscene and reverberated through the empty bathroom. 

Holy shit, that's right they were still in public. Someone could walk in on them any minute. The thought made his heat race even faster and he felt his nook leaking into his boxers. His hand slid down desperate to take care of it, but the blonde swatted his hand away as he began to stroke him with one hand and slipped his other into the trolls boxers to finger up into his dripping hole. 

Holy shit. That felt good. This dude absolutely knew what he was doing and probably could go a lot further than this... Karkat fucked himself on the blondes fingers shaking, and realizing how close he was. He pulled his mouth away from his sleeve and stifled a groan, panting. “Fuck. Can I go deeper? Faster?”

The blonde took his mouth off to reply but continued to stroke the bulge in long sweeps. “Fuck yeah you can baby. You can use my mouth however you’d like. I’m so ready to be-”

Karkat cut him off by forcing his head down, and his cock into the very eager blonde’s mouth. The blonde slipped his fingers out of the toll’s nook and took the bulge deep into his throat, gagging for only a moment before it turned into a long reverberating moan that joined with Karkat’s even louder one as he felt the vibrations deep on his bulge. Dave looked up at Karkat and pushed up his shades. Tears pricked his eyes but they told Karkat he was adjusted and ready to go to facepoundtown. Not being able to hold back any longer Karkat began to deeply fuck the blonde’s throat in short almost convulsing strokes. Close to his base he felt the cold air mix with spit and the premat that had begun accumulating. It gathered at the corners of the blonde’s mouth before dripping down onto his, thankfully, black shirt. His eyes were shut now but he was relaxed in a headspace Karkat could get addicted to seeing. The blonde, kneeling with his neck craned, looked blissed out at being so utterly wrecked and used. Karkat couldn’t hold back any longer. “FUCK” he shouted “I’m gonna-” He quickly ripped his bulge out of the blonde’s mouth, barely avoiding teeth, before immediately shooting easily a liter’s worth of genetic material right into the toilet to the side of them. 

The blonde watched in awe. “Holy. Shit. Damn baby. That’s So. Hot.” 

Karkat leaned back breathless against the stall wall as the blonde suddenly took his bulge one last time to taste him. 

“Gu-FUCK! Warning please you mouthy-” He was interrupted by sweet excitement. 

“Oh fuck. God I couldn't talk with my mouth full earlier but you really are sweet as a popsicle on a hot summer day. I would drink all that up in a heartbeat!” He looked at the red in the toilet and sighed, “What a waste.” 

“Better there than on your jacket.” Karkat managed as he caught his breath and grabbed some toilet paper to wipe up a bit. 

The blond stood up and adjusted himself. Karkat looked at him and suddenly felt bad for not reciprocating. “Do you uh want me to-” 

“Nah dude, you’re good. This was the best face fucking I’ve had in a while. Besides. You still have friends here.” He said, tucking his shirt back into his pants and grabbing toilet paper to wipe the slurry of red off his mouth and dabbed it out of his shirt. 

“OH FUCK. What the hell are they going to say! Shit I’m literally never going to live this down.”

Dave pressed a finger to the panic troll’s lips. “Shhhh. Dude they don’t have to know _what_ we did in here. Trust me I got this.” 

“Trust you? I just met you! I don’t even-” 

“You trusted me enough to put your tentadick in my mouth man. Besides like I said, i’m charming. I think I know how to get you out of an awkward social situation.” The blonde rearranged his glasses and smiled. His face was still flushed, and Karkat couldn’t help but think about how cute he looked. He sighed. 

“Fine. What’s the plan?” Karkat asked flushing the red slurry in the toilet and opening the stall door. He looked in the mirror to check his hair and clothes. Luckily he had kept himself pretty stain free through all of this. His face however was flushed still, sort of like he had gotten the everliving fuck sucked out of him. Other than that though, he could probably pull this off fine. 

The blonde had gone over to the sink and Karkat watched as he gargled a bit of water and spit red into the basin. Mouth clear, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and turned toward Karkat. 

“Just leave that to me. All you have to do is go out there first.” 

Karkat took one glance in the mirror and tried to clam his expression as he preparing himself for Rose and Kanaya’s interrogation. Figuring it was good enough he turned back to the blonde. “Alright see you out there. Uh. Thanks by the way. That was, fun.”

The stranger lowered his glasses again and winked one more time. “Told you being charming got you places.” 

Karkat laughed nervously. “Ha, yeah I guess you’re right about that one.” He turned for the door and took one last look behind him before pushing it open into the loud resturant’s chatter and heading back to his seat. Kanaya and Rose were still busy talking when they saw that he had returned. When he sat down they both quieted and looked at him expectantly. 

“Soo we couldn’t help but notice that you were talking to a stranger and then suddenly disappeared after him into the bathroom.” Just as they started, said stranger came out of the bathroom looking rougher than ever. 

He leaned walked over to Karkat and leaned an arm sloppily over his shoulder.“Hey man sthanks for your help again back there. I don’t think I could even call an uber myself at this point. Ssorry I almost vomited on you.” The blonde slurred. 

“You think you can make it from here?” Karkat said, playing along. Honestly, he would have been impressed by the drunken showmanship, until he remembered he probably had had some practice to nail his performance so spot on. 

“Yeeeah I’m good. You’re like a fucking hero dude. Deserve a medal of hoonor and all that purple heart loving from Obama himself.” He patted Karkat on the back and went to leave. “My uber is here so I’m gonna head out. Bye my guy.” He gave the group a finger guns gesture and turned out the door. 

“Uh yeah. No problem.” He watched the blonde leave and realized he never even got his name. 

Karkat turned to Rose and Kanaya to pick up the bit. 

“The guy said something to me about feeling sick and that he might need help so I followed him to make sure he was good.” He wasn’t great at lying, especially to Rose and Kanaya, but he really didn’t want to admit to his horny shenanigans so he continued, “He almost dropped his phone in the toilet trying to get an uber and then came close to vomiting on my shoes before I pushed his head into the toilet just in time.”

They seemed to believe it enough, and were happy everything worked out in the end. Honestly, Karkat helping out a guy in the bathroom seemed far more likely than him getting his globes off in a stall with a stranger whose name he never even got. 

They were interrupted by the bartender. 

“Was this guy with you? He never closed his tab.”

Karkat went pale. “Fuck.” He pulled out his wallet and handed the bartender a card. He guessed this was a transaction to him after all. Though he felt like he shouldn't really complain after what he just received. Maybe the cocky bastard was right after all. Being charming sure does get you something.


	2. CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

Truth be told, having Saturday off wasn’t really anything all that special. Sure it might be nice if Karkat had a partner who worked a typical 9-5 but that not being the case it actually felt more inconvenient. Suddenly everything was a lot more crowded, making his weekdays off feel like a superpower in comparison. A super power he longed for again as he navigated his usual jogging route with a surplus of strollers and what felt like every dog owner in a 40 mile radius.

He sighed and eyed a side street off the trail, perfect. Pausing to not hit a very lazy labrador and stroller he managed to cross the road into a newly constructed neighborhood he hadn’t really explored much. God this area was changing. He passed by townhouses with small green lawns and all looking very similar in style minus their complimenting color schemes. It was much less crowded here and he began to gain a rhythm again not having to pant out “on your left” every two beats.

As he finally settled into his run he thought back to the night before. The red-eyed blonde on the bathroom floor and every inkling of potential he hadn’t even considered in the moment. It had been years since his last public hookup. His college days were long done and any hooking up that happened now (though he had to admit these days it wasn’t often) was in the security of either his place or theirs. Last night though had felt different. The red-eyed blond was a juxtaposition he couldn’t get off his mind. His kisses had the feel of someone who was craving intimacy more than a casual bathroom fuck, so why did he ask for that? Maybe he hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t usually do that sort of thing. What kind of guy lied about his background to get a job, and then kissed a stranger in a public bathroom like they had been dating for three years and we're just now trying to spice up their sex life?

_I talk a lot._

_You do_

Karkat hadn’t even gotten his name. He only realized this after he had paid the tab for his bathroom randevu. The blonde probably hadn’t wanted to share it, or maybe he had been waiting for Karkat to ask... either way it was probably for the best. It’s not like he was ever going to see him again, and if he did, what was he going to do? Approach the guy and say ‘Hey aren’t you the guy who sucks a bulge like the ice cream stand is about to close for the summer or whatever you said to me on the bathroom floor? No? Oh okay cool. Cool.’ Yeah, definitely not going to happen. Still, he hadn’t asked his name. His hook up had been so sweet and he had treated him.. like a piece of ass. God he really was a mess. 

As much as Karkat binged romcoms and steamy drugstore paperbacks he found that quad filling really wasn’t a priority right now. Despite his once in a blue moon grinder dates, he had found other ways to chase away the intrusive feelings of wanting to be wanted. Focus on romance that didn’t involve him, keep himself busy, work, workout, see the few people he tried to keep up with regularly, and repeat. Anything else just sort of got in the way. Besides who would really want to put up with his bullshit past a quick fuck? Maybe that’s why the blonde had left like he did, nameless and cocky. He had gotten what he wanted from Karkat, and Karkat had gotten what he wanted as well..right? Yeah. 

He rounded the corner and turned up his playlist drowning out any other thoughts of the night before. On his way back he decided to sprint. 

The next day Karkat came into work for the usually busy Sunday afternoon. The automatic doors parted to loud shouts from scanners. The registers were already fully staffed, and baggers were working furiously at getting everything settled before the transactions were completed. He noticed the line was still around the corner. Why is it that everyone comes in on Sunday when they know it’s going to be like this? He thought of his Saturday jogging route and sighed, poor cubicle working fucks. Were your 9-5’s really worth it for this hell of a grocery line? Probably? Who knew?

He gave up on trying to understand the psyche of the office working masses as he stepped into his own office space and clocked in. He tossed his shit into a crate next to the grocery desk’s side. Jade, the produce manager, had jokingly labeled it ‘KarKat’s Krate’, which he never bothered to change and secretly made him smile. It contained mostly half opened snacks, a few notebooks, and random box cutters and sharpies he tried to hide from the other team members who were too lazy to keep track of their own.

As he logged into the desktop he heard muffled voices from the cashroom office door next to his desk. It sounded like the operations managers were having some private cramped meeting in the little room. Not his problem. If they really needed him they could find him later, until then he had ordered to do and if he was luckily and not called away to bag for hours on end he might actually be able to get them done on time. First, though he had to check his email, which he had been completely avoiding the past two days.

Big mistake. The 300 plus emails screamed at him and he sighed, knowing most were useless to him but if he didn’t at least scan them he’d be completely out of the loop or miss some vital bit Eridan would get on his ass about later. 

He had just gotten through his fifth email when the cashroom door opened and he heard a voice that made him freeze. No. Fuck. Absolutely not...it couldn’t be... 

He looked up and his mind went straight to static. 

His GM, John, stood there with a very familiar lanky blonde in sunglasses. Who for a moment looked just as shocked as he did, before quickly changing his obscured face to a beaming ‘Gee I sure am glad to meet you’ smile. 

John ignored Karkat’s expression, John ignored a lot of things that didn’t make sense to him. “Karkat! Glad you’re here! This is Dave, he’s our new OPS manager. Dave, this is Karkat. He’s our grocery MIT, but he’s been at the store awhile so he knows most of the other departments pretty well. If you can’t find another OPS manager around he’s generally your guy!” Karkat managed to force a tight smile up at Dave in order to give John the impression he wasn’t freaking the fuck out. 

Dave held out his hand. “Well hi there Karkat, it’s a pleasure to, uh, meet you. I’m Dave Strider.”, his accent slipped in casually, and he spoke much slower than he had the other night. The other night. This was the job the blonde had lied to get. His bathroom hookup had lied into being his boss... 

“Uh. Hi.” Karkat took the hand that had taken his bulge two days prior and shook it awkwardly still processing what the fuck was going on. Fuck this was just his luck right? He turned back to his desk not wanting to look _Dave Strider_ in his stupidly smug sunglasses clad face.

“Yeah, uh, like John said I might be able to help you out with some stuff, but I’m not an operational manager and I have my own stuff to do so it probably would be best if you try and find one of them first.” He was rambling but it was everything he could do to try and level his head at what was going on right now. He tried to focus on opening up his email and steadying his hands that he could feel were on the verge of shaking from confusion and _rage_ . It _had_ to just be a coincidence _right_ ? _Had he planned this?_

Dave looked down at Karkat and smiled. “Absolutely. But let me know if _you_ also need help with anything. I don’t know your store well yet obviously but I’ve been in the grocery biz for a bit so if you explain to me what you need I might be able to figure it out well enough to help you out.” 

Karkat’s back stiffened and it took everything in him to not fucking flip the smug bastard down on the desk and call him out on all his bullshit in front of John. Except then he’d have to admit how he knew the guy, and, fuck that was a whole thing entirely. “Cool. Thanks.” He said through gritted teeth, pointedly not looking up. 

John ignored this too. 

“Thanks, Karkat. We’ll let you get your orders done. I love to see that in our team. Just constantly supporting each other. That’s what we're really about here at FreshGrub-.” John began to walk away and Karkat pointed ignored Dave’s last glance at him as he walked away following his boss’s lead.

As the two walked away, Karkat went through a symposium of emotions before getting up and walking calmly into the freezer by the office. As soon as he heard the door shut behind him he began a long string of profanities “WHATTHENOOKFUCKINGSHITFUCKGAHDAMNICANTFUUUUCKWHYTHEGODDAMNFUCKISHESHIIIIIIIIIT-” finally he caught his breath and began a semi-coherent string of thoughts instead. His shouting had warmed him up a bit, but he still shivered against the shelves of frozen bread and ice cream. 

Had this shades wearing fuckbrow really lied about his entire fucking resume just to get into a manager position here?! Hadn’t they called references and shit? Fuck he knew the OPS team was desperate to hire a few new people but they could at least get their shit together a little bit better than this. 

_Dave Strider_

Did _Dave_ know that the two of them would be working together when he asked to blow him at the Ramen house? Was this all some sick powerplay or was this guy literally just the biggest dumbass with some shit luck that was just about to run out...He should tell John, right? He wouldn’t have to tell him how he knew the guy exactly, but maybe he didn’t have to say anything at all. Did it really even matter? There was no way this guy could pull this stunt off. You can’t fake working in “the grocery biz” for a few years.. But then again John was the kind of guy to rationalize away anything that made him look like he didn’t know what he was doing either so maybe the two would get along. It looked like they already had… 

But even John couldn’t ignore complete ignorance right? The situation would work this out itself. They would find out soon enough that this smug ass, shit for a thinkpan douche didn’t know a UPC from the UPS. All Karkat would have to do would be to wait this out. Avoid him as much as possible and keep things strictly professional. 

He figured the guy had enough of a self preservation instinct to not make things awkward between the two of them, and keep things on an as needed basis. Then again he was dealing with a man who wore reflective sunglasses indoors and oh, HAD LIED ABOUT HIS ENTIRE CAREER TO WORK AT A GROCERY STORE. 

He thought back to the smug bastard’s comment about helping him and the shit eating grin that had accompanied it. Yeah no, this guy was not going to make things easy was he. Fuck maybe he needed to scream again. He was considering his last shout of choice when the freezer door opened to just the last fucking guy he wanted to see. 

“OOH hey uh.. Karkat! Just the guy I wanted to see! Uh...well..” Dave averted his eyes from the ones that he now realized were mentally scalping him and leaving him for dead. “Um…”

“WHAT THE FUCK?! DID YOU PLAN THIS OR IS THIS SOME TWISTED FUCK OF A COINCIDENCE?! Karkat took a deep cold breath to continue but Dave spoke first. 

“Plan this? Fuck no dude! I’m just as surprised as you are. That’s actually why I went to find you. I actually came in here to look for you. Except it was kinda like a mental joke. Like you know like when you leave your keys in the fridge and your milk in the cereal cabinet. I was like “Where is Karkat! Is he in the office? Under the desk? Huh I wonder if I left Karkat in the freezer! But then you actually were in the freezer and now I’m in the freezer, wait why are you in the freezer? It’s pretty fucking cold in here man. Like-”

“-CAN YOU STOP TALKING FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND?! LIKE IS IT AN ABILITY YOU POSSESS? I’D REALLY LIKE TO KNOW AT THIS POINT!” 

Dave Strider watched Karkat’s whole body shake in front of him as he screamed insults his way. He caught maybe half of it. Too busy focused on the contracted muscles and popped veins of the troll in front of him. Was it the cold or was the dude really just a can of anger flavored coke. He had been stressed the other night, sure. Definitely not the chillest guy afterward maybe but in the moment? He had been, fuck. Level, asking before taking, grounding even...the other night. 

Dave had just finished his late meeting with the regional major Jane and his new General Manager John, they had offered him the Assistant General Manager position at Fresh Grub and he had done everything in his power to not jump up and thank them. 

He pulled it off! Immediately he went to text Sollux. His best friend and roommate had helped him put together his faux resumes for every job they could find on Indeed. He should absolutely get in on this party time, until he looked at the time. 7pm damn. Sollux would be live streaming. Guess he was going to be celebrating solo. Well he had a fancy manager job now so what did managers do after work? Get a drink? Hell yeah, he could do that. He picked the first place that had a bar in it and walked in. 

The Ramen House was fairly crowded and he considered leaving for another place until he saw the back, well Karkat’s back in the back. And dear god what a back it was. Could shoulders really be that thick? God that man wasn’t that tall looking but bands from the 70s could write ballads about that brick house of a bod. 

Thick muscles covered by a black t-shirt pulled tight from his leaning on one elbow facing two women at the bar….who..ah we're definitely together. Sweet. It was only then that Dave had seen That Ass. A peach of a behind spread across the barstool begging for Dave to come up and sit right beside it. 

His plan had been to walk up and play it cool the whole way. Brush up against him, order the guy a drink, pull him away from his friends and maybe, see if this could turn into a my place or yours kinda deal. 

But then the conversation sort of halted. His drink offers had been turned down and even though Dave could tell the guy was interested enough, he had turned back to his friends. Fuck. He needed to get his attention again. Stupidly, maybe, he had pulled out his trump card. Secrets were hot when shared with strangers, right? 

And it had worked. Karkat had turned back around to face him and then...he had turned around again. God this was much harder than he realized.

Dave had never been the type to pick up guys at the bar. Hell he hadn’t even had a fling since he and Terezi broke up like what? A year ago. Damn he was out of practice. But the movies made this look so easy!

Alright, he could do this. Just ask the guy to meet him in the bathroom. How hard could it be to pull this off? All he had to do really was make his intentions clearly known. If the guy didn’t join him he could just take a piss and be on his way, easy enough. Sure it would kinda suck but hey you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Micheal Scott, had said that once, and he was a manager right?

When he left for the bathroom he honestly didn’t expect the guy to come in after him and seeing him look at him like that. Tousled short curls, hungry eyes, soft..lips.. Dave had immediately eaten that shit up and oooh boy he was in it now. 

Karkat smelled like coffee grounds and sweat, spicy broth and that kiss.. His Lips had felt like the first touch of the smoothest ice cream you could wrap your lips around, but like warm? Like when you put vanilla ice cream on warm apple pie and the pie hasn’t quite melted the ice cream but it’s still kinda warm, not hot but still firm enough and… nevermind.

Dave melted into those lips and the arms that wrapped around his thin waist. Karkat’s grasp was gentle but the press of his large forearms and thick biceps felt so secure Dave could bury himself in them for eternity. Who was the man? How could he show him just how good this felt? What did you even do in a bathroom hookup? Should he have Karkat fuck him? That seemed a bit much for a first date..but a blow job… That he could do! 

And he had. 

And Karkat had treated him both considerately and rough in just the best kind of addictive way, and then. 

When they were done Dave saw the look of embarrassment on Karkat’s face. Oh fuck his friend’s right. He regretted this didn’t he? Yeah it looked like that. Fuck he had messed up. Should have just played up the whole mysterious stranger vibe and given him his number. Damn Strider, good going on this one. The least he could do would be to help him out of this. The guy never even asked his name. He probably didn’t want anything but this, a quick bathroom hookup. 

He probably didn’t want anything to do with Dave again. That was probably for the best though. Right? 

Dave snapped back into the conversation and realized it wasn’t going in the direction of ‘No Dave of course I’m not going to tell John. I actually think that deep down you’re a cool guy and I’d like to get to know you better.’ that he was hoping it would go. Was this guy gonna just keep yelling or was he going to let them sort this out? 

“Look man I get it you’re upset, but can you stop shouting so we can actually figure this whole thing out? Wait can they hear you? Or is this like that tag line to Aliens? In the freezer no one can hear you scre-”

“DAVE!” Karkat screamed, and no one heard him but Dave. 

“Right. Sorry.” Dave wrapped his arms around himself and shivered as he looked expectantly at Karkat, waiting for the troll to decide where this conversation would go next. He hoped it would at least go out of the freezer, but given their situation maybe it would be best to keep it in here. He hadn’t worked in retail long but even he knew that talking about blow jobs in the office probably wasn’t a great move on your first day there. 

Damn Dave, what did you get yourself into? 

Karkat sighed, calming down a bit at Dave’s call out, no, his _boss’s_ call out. He wanted to make this quick but he didn’t think Dave Strider could manage that. He figured they’d just have to talk after work. Fuck. He really didn’t want to keep this up. 

“Look I don’t know why you’re here and we don’t have time right now to go into that. I still haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to tell John either so stay out of my way for this shift and we can get that bullshit conversation out of the way after this hell day is over. Meet me on the fifth floor of the parking garage after you're done with your shift.”

Dave nodded, but looked incredibly nervous. “Uh, yeah sure. Talk to you then. But, um, if you could not make any decisions to tell John before then, I’d-um really appreciate it. Like I know I don’t deserve that but-just, fuck, think about it okay? Thanks.” Dave didn’t give Karkat a chance to respond immediately turning embarrassed and walking out of the freezer. Leaving Karkat once again wondering how to look like he hadn’t spent far too long in private with Dave Strider in a secluded room. 

He decided to just walk out and hope everyone else would be dealing with the lines right now instead of hanging in the office. Of course he wasn’t that lucky. When Karkat emerged from the freezer red in the face and shivering, Jade was standing at her desk trying to get her orders done. This was a huge feat for her on the weekends since she was usually the first to be called to the front to help bag or explain the difference between a turnip and a rutabaga. She looked up from her computer when she saw Karkat.

“Hey Karkat. How’s it going? Didn’t the new guy just come out of there a second ago?” Jade looked up at the shivering troll who was grabbing a tissue from the box on top of the printer. She turned back to her screen to give him his snot privacy and also to continue focusing on the variety of apples on her order page. 

“Yeah he came to look for me to ask about an old sales tag he had found, but then he asked me what I was doing and I had to explain that I was counting our Green Mill on-hands because you know those numbers are always wrong.”

“I don’t, but cool? Yeah he said something about not being able to hear someone scream in there but to be honest I was kinda only half listening, sort of like right now. Hey did you already get your orders done? It’s like almost 1pm.”

“FUCK.” Karkat rushed to his desk and opened up the ordering pages he needed to work on. He didn’t have much time, so he hoped the front end wasn’t dumb enough to call him up. Dave Strider was already making his work life worse. God maybe he really should tell John- no he needed to focus first, nothing would be worth the utter shit Eridan would have for him if he didn’t get this done on time, or worse, if he fucked it up. 

Karkat finished his orders with five minutes to spare. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He should probably eat something. He reached into his crate lazily and found a loosely rolled up bag of pretzels. He pulled a few out and continued to stare at the office ceiling. Did this count at his lunch break? Fuck he was tired already and his shift had barely started. 

Outside of the office he heard the familiar Sunday store noises or baggers being called to the front and the registers going nonstop. He should probably help out. Maybe check in on customer service or see if the afternoon stockers were on schedule with their stocking tasks. He wondered how Dave was handling his shift. 

He still hadn’t decided if he should tell John or not. He thought back to how hard he had worked to get his own job, and how there were a few people in this store he thought deserved the chance to try and step up to the role before some prick from outside got to. But they hadn’t applied, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

Honestly, Dave not knowing shit really wasn’t his problem. Maybe he was a bit jealous of his cockiness, that ability to walk into a situation not knowing a goddamn thing and still being confident enough to offer to help out. That kind of arrogant go with the flow stupidity must take some sort of talent right? Either way all he had to do was pretend he didn’t know the blonde’s shitty little secret. Right? Good. Decision made. Karkat shoved the last two pretzels in his mouth before he got up and went to the front of the store. 

Dave had never worked customer service before, but he figured that didn’t matter much as long as he listened. Yeah he could talk a lot. Probably too much as a certain, uh coworker, had told him once, but he could listen too. That was the thing when you didn’t think about what you were going to say next, you had the time to actually focus on the person in front of you. Right now that person was really fucking pissed that their milk had expired the day they had bought it. No they didn’t have a receipt, it was two months ago, but they were busy. How could Dave expect them to find the time to come into a store 20 minutes from them just to return bad milk? So was Dave going to give them their money back or not. 

Aw shit. “I’m sorry there but if you don’t have your receipt and it’s past the 30 day mark I can’t give you the return.” Dave had just had the return policy explained to him so he felt pretty confident on this one. 

The customer looked absolutely furious. “Do you have any idea how much money I spend here? I’ve been coming to this store since you opened!” 

“Well uh-” 

“How can you talk to me with those glasses on anyway?! Do they honestly let you wear those things indoors? How can you even see me when I’m talking to you!”

With that comment Dave felt his Jenga game of confidence begin to wobble. Fuck, what was he doing here? How did you stop people from talking like this? He wasn’t used to interrupting people and telling them no. Yeah sure there was nothing here anyone could call him that Bro hadn’t said ten times harsher before, but he had never said no to Bro. Not even when he had left. 

Fuck they were starring. He had to do something.

He took off his glasses and squinted at the light before looking the customer in the eyes. They stopped talking suddenly. Ah there it was, his sliver of confidence slipped back into place as he took the customer’s silence as a moment to lean in. 

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be rude, I’m sensitive to bright light.” His eyes stayed fixed on the customer who was now trying to avoid his red-eyed gaze. “Now it’s like I said. The policy is 30 days and I don’t have a lick of proof that you even bought the milk. I’d be happy to help you with something else but if that’s all you’ve got then I have a line forming right now and I’d really rather not waste these lovely people’s time.” Dave ended his segment with a smile and put back on his glasses. 

The customer made a face that looked like they were debating whether or not to continue their milk fight but instead said, “Well fine. But I’ll be thinking twice before I shop here again!” They turned to leave and Dave called out.“Well alright, then you have a lovely day. Bye-bye now!” He looked up at the line in front of the service desk and smiled at the next customer. This was going to be a long fucking shift. 

Karkat stood on top of a ladder grabbing cereal boxes from the top of the sales shelf storage and climbed down to stock it below. He checked his watch, 7:30pm. His shift was technically over at 7pm, but he usually ended up staying later on Sundays anyways. Him waiting for Dave’s shift to finish wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. He finished with the cereal top stock and checked his list. Meat, eggs and milk still needed to be hit. He could get all that done before he needed to get out of here, and he doubted Dave would be staying later than 8pm. 

He thought back to what he had seen of Dave’s shift earlier, covering the customer service desk. It was still busy upfront when he had rounded the cooler section to find a line at the customer service desk. Not really a thing but it all made sense when he saw that a particularly bitchy customer would not give up on some sort of four dollar grievance and yep, there was Dave, behind the counter.

He saw Dave take off his glasses and lean into the conversation. What was he doing exactly? Intimidating them? Karkat looked at the line again, and not wanting to cause a ‘hey I was next’ situation, he decided to try and subtly see what the back of the line needed. Luckily the last person just wanted directions to the soup which had been easy enough to lead him to.

When Karkat had come back the line had gone down and it was just a single customer in front of Dave. He watched as the blonde, of course wearing his shades again, chuckled at the customer’s quip and processed what looked to be a return. Dave seemed at ease now. Like he had actually been in ‘the grocery biz’ for years. How did he pull it off? 

Karkat opened the cooler and began to push the milk forward. Was this his job now? Face products and think about Dave Strider? He had been doing it all day. Really the last two days if he added in his day off before he had realized he’d be working with the guy. What did he use to even think about before? Right, the next thing. 

He had always just focused on the next thing and then the thing after that. Now it felt like someone had gone into his head and crossed all his wires, braiding them together until his mental output was only Dave fucking Strider, or fucking Dave Strider...fuck nope he wasn’t going to go there. 

He missed when it had just been the next thing on his mind. At least then he knew what to do with himself. 

He finished his list and headed to the front. Dave was in the office talking to John. He saw Dave turn to look up at him as he came in but Karkat ignored them both as he went to his desk to grab his shit, pull on his jacket, and clock out. He wasn’t going to wait for Dave, he’d meet him where he’d said they’d meet. 

“See ya guys tomorrow.” He said not looking up as the time clock beeped, confirming his punch. He threw up a peace sign and turned to leave. 

Dave stopped mid-sentence and called out to his coworker. “Hey Karkat. Wait up! I’ll walk out with you!” No way was he gonna not take every opportunity to talk to him. He saw Karkat freeze deciding what to do next. Heard an “Uhh suure.” and that was all the confirmation he needed. He turned back to John. 

“Hey I’m gonna head out now, but I’ll keep in mind what you said about customers like that. Thanks for everything.” Dave said to John as he grabbed his backpack and unplugged his phone charger from it’s not too discrete spot behind the OPS desk. 

“Sounds good. We’re really excited to have you onboard Dave. Keep up the good work and have a goodnight!” John gave a quick wave and headed into the cash room leaving Dave to finish packing up.

“Thanks John, have a good night!” Dave punched out at the time clock and turned towards and irritated looking Karkat still waiting for him. He met the troll’s frown with a smile that made Karkat’s heart do a weird skip he really didn’t like. 

“Ready to go?” He waited for Karkat to take the lead and watched the troll make a resigned sigh. “Sure, let’s get this over with.” He turned to walk out and Dave followed behind. 

Karkat had hoped their walk to District’s parking garage would be in awkward silence with Dave trying to keep pace with his eager-to-get-this-over-with strides. Dave, however, hadn’t gotten the memo, things were awkward but they sure weren’t fucking silent. 

"And they call me Strider!” He did a little skip jog to keep up. “Ha maybe you should take my last name instead!- uuuh fuck but like not in that way! I just meant you walk fast! Which is like cool considering your work boots must weigh like five pounds each. Seriously how do you keep this up? I saw you running around all day in those things." 

"Practice" Karkat said simply, not looking the blonde in the eyes, or sunglasses, or whatever. Fuck, he really didn't know how to engage with this guy. Dave Strider felt like the kind of person who if you gave him a cookie’s worth of affection he'd act like it was fine to drink your milk right out of the carton without asking. He didn't want to be rude to the guy but he was absolutely not about to make friends with him. Could he even _be friends_ with him? After _that_?

No. It was better to keep Dave at a distance. That's what this talk would be about. Distance, respecting boundaries, communication on an as-needed basis only. 

"So if you're not going to tell John about me would you want to, I don't know, grab a drink sometime?" 

Aaand there it was. They were on the 3rd floor stairwell, but fuck it. Karkat spun around. He was about half a foot shorter than Dave but standing on stairs he towered over him.

“Are you fucking serious right now?! Do you wake up every morning and shit in your own thinkpan?! No! Absolutely not! Fuck! Why are you here Dave? Why did you lie about your career to work HERE OF ALL PLACES! If that charm of yours is so good why didn’t you lie to get, I don’t know, some sort of office job or fuck why stop at AGM! Why not go for General Manager! Regional! Company CEO!” Karkat stopped to take a breath. But the look on Dave’s face made him immediately regret every word he had flung out of his mouth right into the guy’s face. 

“You.. really are going to tell John.” Dave turned to face the parking, realizing suddenly he never actually looked as stoic as he wanted to around Karkat. “Look man I get it. I don’t deserve this job, and hell I’m probably not going to be very good at it to start, but I really need it right now. And honestly, I really like it! I really like the store and the people and you...well I don’t know it seemed like you know what you’re doing! And fuck I can see how much you care. I just kinda hoped having someone like you in my corner might honestly make me be better at this.” Dave didn’t look back towards Karkat instead he just continued to stare off, honestly not knowing what to do with himself now. 

Karkat looked at Dave and his heart sank. Okay yeah he had just sounded like the biggest asshole around, and the echo in here sure didn’t help with that. So much for subtle. Why did he always react like this?

He bit his lip and caved. “Okay look, I’m sorry. I uh shouldn’t have yelled like that. You didn’t deserve that.” His voice had softened, an invite as he paused waiting for Dave to at least turn around and face him. Wanting to at least see a glimmer of non-resentment from the guy he had just thrown angry garbage words at. Dave didn’t, so he continued anyway. “And for what it’s worth, I’m not going to tell John.” At that, Dave whipped around and looked up at Karkat with an expression that almost made Karkat not want to say the next part of his tangent.

God Dave looked so soft in this light. He couldn’t even see his eyes but he didn’t need to know that the guy was so thankful it was almost reverent. Like he wanted to thank him in any way possible...oh fuck. NOPE he had to do this. Now. 

“-But whatever happened between us is over. Got it? We’re coworkers, that’s it. Fuck we’re not even that really. You’re my boss, so yes I’ll keep your stupid piss dumb secret but no, we’re not getting drinks after this.” His tone was hard again and Dave’s face sank a bit but he seemed to accept that much at least. 

“Oh. Okay right. Yeah that makes sense. Um thanks..but.. like we’re cool?” Karkat looked Dave over once more. The lighting was so much more yellow here than it had been in the bathroom. Dave’s hair now took on a gold sheen in the light. 

Karkat signed and turned around to continue their trek up the stairs. “Yeah we’re cool.” 

“Uh great. So I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

"Yeah I’ll see you tomorrow. ” Tomorrow and the day after that and probably the day after that. Most of his days now would have some sort of flavor of Dave Strider now wouldn't they? Karkat started to walk up the stairs again. Wait Dave wasn't following him up? Where had he parked? He stopped. 

“Wait.” He called down to Dave who was already turned around gazing back up had him, had he been.. nevermind. 

Dave had been looking up at Karkat's glorious ass, you know briefly as a treat when Karkat turned around and told him to wait. Shit had he just changed his mind? Did he want to get drinks after all? Say fuck it and get to know each other and-

“Where did you park anyway?” 

Dave's heart sank. Oh well figured as much. Wait why did it matter where he parked?

“Um the first floor?” 

“We park up here dude. Third floor or above. Save that space for customers next time.” He turned around again and walked back up. 

"Uh right. Got it. Yeah...have a good night Karkat!” Dave called back up, hoping he’d get some sort of response. 

“Night, Strider.” Karkat responded. His tone seemed actually casual now. The harshness he had seen from him earlier was gone and Dave settled into that tone... _Strider._ Ouch. There was that distance. He guessed he had to live with that one. But really who else called him just by his last name? It was kinda _more familiar_ if he thought about it. A nickname even. 

Hopefully, that’s how things would be from now on. He had meant what he said about wanting Karkat in his corner. Fuck he kinda needed it. Dave listened to the sound of Karkat’s boots clomping up the stairs until they faded away, as he walked in the opposite direction back to the first floor. He thought back on the whole day and heaved a sigh of relief. 

He had actually gotten a job, a real job. Bro had been wrong, and he’d never let him be right again.


	3. SAY ANYTHING (BUT THAT)

Dave pulled into a parking space on the third floor of District parking garage, and then pulled out again to even it out because fuck how do you actually park in a small box like that? 

Driving was hard and a new concept for him. It made him miss his longboard, but he didn’t know how professional it would look for him to roll up on a longboard to work. Or to take it on the highway for that matter. Sollux thankfully had let him use his car, which wasn’t really a big deal since the IT nerd rarely left the house much anyway.

He figured sharing discount groceries was a fair price to pay for being able to get to his job. Plus Dave was pretty sure his bestie had suggested grocery store manager as a possibility in order to get the food discount. Just like how he had suggested Best Buy manager just so he could swipe recycled parts. The guy was always looking for a good deal. 

He finished his semi-in-line parking job, and got out just as a blue bike pulled in and parked in a space near the wall. He watched the guy in the leather jacket and black jeans dismount and pull off his helmet. _Niiiice_ he thought until he saw exactly who was under the helmet, Karkat. Of course, he should have recognized that ass anywhere. 

“Hey Karkat!” Dave called out, closing the door a little too hard on his friend’s Honda Civic. 

Karkat turned around and the look he gave Dave immediately made him want to open the door back up and drive home. Weren’t they cool now? Their talk the night before had made it seem like they were, but maybe Karkat was just trying to keep the peace. Oh fuck he should say something. 

“Hot bike!” 

Nope. Not that. Karkat shot Dave a glare that could sink a thousand bikes, wait no, ships. Whatever it was, maybe he shouldn’t have poked the grumpy troll this early. 

Karkat held his helmet and stared at Dave, looking pissed off.

“You know what? I’m not in the mood for this Strider. I’m parking on the fourth floor.” Dave watched as Karkat put his helmet back on, hopped on his Yamaha, and drove up to the next level.

He stood there as the rejection hit him. He dejectedly started walking toward the elevators before realizing Karkat would probably take the stairs. Fuck it. If Karkat wanted to play grumpy he was going to play charming as hell. And gentlemen always wait patiently. 

He heard the clomp of boots above him and waited for Karkat to pass before following behind. 

“So how long have you been riding? Uh sorry, is that what you bike bros call it? I wouldn’t know I got my driver’s license like 8 months ago. Never really learned while I lived in Huston. But bikes are really sweet! What made you get one?”

He heard Karkat give a defeated sigh but then to his surprise he actually answered him.

“I’ve had the bike for a year now. I don’t take it to work every day, but it’s really nice for morning shifts. The air feels fresher in the morning...” He paused, then shrugged and said, “I guess I just wanted to do something that felt out of character.”

“Hey man, you wanted to feel cool. I get it” Was this? A _conversation_? Sweeeet. They walked across the first floor towards the parking garage, their pace side by side for once. Which meant Dave couldn’t cop a look at that ass, but the actual conversation was working for him just as well. Just because they were coworkers didn’t mean they couldn’t get to know each other after all. 

“HA. Are _you_ saying I’m not cool, Strider? Should I go get a pair of Aviators and wear them at all times like I’m some action movie douche bag?” 

Wait. Was Karkat...teasing him? Huh, now this, was the kind of banter that he liked! Dave smiled. 

“Hey you can try to copy my look all you want sweet cheeks. I’ll always wear it better.” He dipped his frames, showing a bit of his bright red eyes to Karkat for a wink. Which resulted in Karkat picking up his pace and walking quickly ahead. Leaving Dave with a perfect view to start his day as he followed behind the thick thighed grocery guy all the way to the time clock. He watched him go into the office to talk to what it seemed like was the grocery manager. Normally he’d introduce himself but he didn’t want to interrupt so he quickly popped his bag on the desk and left the two to their grocery biz. He had some learning to do. Hardcore morning manager shit. 

It was Dave’s first truck morning, though it wasn’t really quite much of a truck day as it was the end of it. Real truck shifts, he had gathered from passing conversation and looking at the schedule, were at four am in the goddamn morning for grocery and five am for the ops team. The second OPS guy (which was him today) came in at eight am to help support the last of the unloading, unboxing, and cleaning up of the sales floor as the store began to get ready to open for the day. 

Today he was going to be meeting with the OPS MIT here, who if he could take a wild guess, probably would not be too happy with his outside ass coming in and getting a position over them. Their name was Roxy and as John had put it, “they have a solid work ethic but I seriously don’t know what they’re sayin half of the time. Ya yeet?” Memes aside, Dave figured they’d know far more than he did about all of this, he just had to act cool and calm like he was giving a wise teaching moment right? 

He found them by the chips section surrounded by large colorful boxes of, well, chips. He watched them slice open a box, bright pink curls hiding their face from view. They heard him approaching and looked up. “Hey! You must be Dave! Right on time my guy!” They got to their feet and put the safety on their box cutter before sliding it into their pocket and extending their hand to Dave. 

Dave shook it. They seemed cheery, that was good. This was...good. 

“Nice to meet ya, Roxy right?” 

“Yeah! I heard you were an AGM at TrollFoods before you came here! Honestly that place sounds lame as fuck. Good move coming to our side!” They did a brief finger gun motion to show how cool and relaxed they were. Dave suddenly understood exactly what John had meant when describing Roxy. They seemed fun as hell though so this should be a good shift. 

“Yeah things changed a lot thereafter Crocker Corp took over.” He repeated his line from earlier, the elevator pitch he and Sollux had come up with was coming in pretty handy. Who knew a guy who worked from home could know exactly how to win friends and influence people in the average office space. “I’m really glad to be here though!” He looked over to the pile of boxes on the floor and the large green painted metal cart, (u-boat?) “Uh alright how can I help out? Need me to stock this out with you or do you guys do other stuff in the morning? This is my first truck shift here so I’m still figuring it out you know?” 

Roxy paused for a moment looking around the store, noticing the wooden pallets still in the aisles and the boxes in carts. They then looked at Dave and realized he probably didn’t have a clue how to do anything around here just yet. Figures that management would have their MIT train someone who was supposed to be their boss. They really didn’t get paid enough for this, but Dave seemed cool at least. Plus he hadn’t come in here all authoritative and ‘I’m your boss’ like so Roxy figured they could work with this. They finished their store assessment and looked back at Dave. 

“Well I don’t really know what you know, ya know? So why don’t you just stick with me for the morning and we’ll get this shit over with and power through the rest of the day!” 

“Sounds good by me!” Dave knelt down to the box covered floor and followed Roxy’s lead. How hard could stocking be really? 

It was an hour before opening and it was a delivery day so the store was just finishing up the last of the truck work as Karkat walked in. Dave, he noticed, was following now much further behind him. Had he pissed him off by stalking away? Had he finally caught on that Karkat wasn’t going to fool around with him? Was he going to give him space now? 

The time clock beeped and he saw he was 5 minutes late Normally he had a mid shift on Monday’s but Eridan had given him as close to a clopening (a closing shift immediately followed by an opening shift) as possible. Passive aggressive mother fucker. Speaking of which Eridan was there in the office, of course on the computer. While the rest of the team broke down boxes and stocked shelves the grocery manager had decided his time would be much better spent here. What was he doing? Oh checking his email. Nice. Cool. 

In all the time Karkat had worked with Eridan he rarely saw the guy actually “work” the truck shift. You know, manage the team, break down a pallet or two, maybe even, fucking stock something himself? Fuck this guy honestly. 

He walked over to the desk and gave a short “hey” to Eridan who did not like being ignored, as Karkat had learned very early on, before tossing his bag in his crate. 

“Good morning Karkat. I see we’re all freshened up from our weekend off eh? Ready to start the week off on a good note?” Eridan gave Karkat the kind of look sharks would give if they also wore lipgloss and ascots, fashionably menacing and ready to wreak his day. 

“Yeah sure. What do you got?” He tried to not look like he wanted to crawl into the freezer and somehow never be found again. Maybe he’d end up as a news story as some missing person's cold case. Ha! cold case. He smiled. 

“Ah there’s that smiling face. You see that pile there?” His face immediately dropped as he followed Eridan’s finger. It pointed to a folder flowing with color slips of pink, yellow and green paper. Likely grocery invoices and receipts to all their orders from what looked to be the entire weekend. 

Fuck.

“I need those committed by 3pm today. I couldn’t get around to it the other day unfortunately, but I have no doubt you can get those done and as well as your 4pm orders, right? Surely a seasoned MIT as yourself should have no problem managing your time well enough to get this done. After the truck is finished of course. I still need the computer here until then. But by the time you finish the truck and check the price changes around the store for the price audit, I’m sure you’ll be able to….”

Karkat listened to Eridan’s long tangent of a list of things for him to do today. Of course if it wasn’t him telling him in person he would have received it all anyway either in a phone call or an email. He waited for Eridan to finish which was signaled by his boss dismissing him with a wave of his hand like telling a child to go run along and play in traffic. Something Karkat longed for briefly as he went through his mental list for the day and left the office, and Eridan, behind. 

All in all, Karkat liked truck days. The manual labor of stacking large wooden pallets and lifting heavy boxes made him feel awake and energized. It also had a clear end goal to it. Get the store ready by 8:50 at the latest. Check-in meat, milk, and eggs. Make sure the team knew what needed to get done, clear the aisles, take care of the boxes and trash, make sure the floors were cleaned with the floor cleaner...ect. Most of the cleaning and clearing was done usually by OPS but today Roxy was training Dave and since it was a smaller order today he figured he’d leave them to their chips while he dealt with the cardboard collection and trash. 

He rounded the corner to the produce department and saw their full wax box pile. Probably should grab that too. 

“Hey Karkat.” 

Jade ducked out from behind a pile of apple boxes to give Karkat a two finger salute of a wave before tossing him an apple. “Catch!”

He caught it just barely, feeling not as cool as he had wished he’d looked. “A little warning would have been nice!” 

“What’s the fun in throwing apples at people if they know it’s coming?” 

“Hmm I don’t know Harley, maybe the joy they feel in their hearts knowing that the apple they’re giving someone isn’t likely to be bruised when it hits the floor because it’s 8 in the morning and some of us don’t chug battery acid for breakfast!” 

“Maybe you’d catch apple’s better if you ‘unleashed the beast’ Karkat. Anyway give that one a try it’s called a pink pearl. I thought you might be into it. Since it’s all blushy and sweet on the inside. Just. Like. You.” 

“Wow Harley, you reading my diary again?”

“No I stopped halfway in when your daddy issues started hitting too close to home.”

“You know. I think I’m going to just take these boxes and go. Thanks for the mutant apple though.” He shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie and went to grab the shopping carts that had been filled with boxes. 

“Anything for you Katkart.” Karkat rolled his eyes and turned to leave, making his way to the back of the store. 

The rest of his cardboard collecting involved far less conversation, which was good because no one else had bothered to even start collecting this shit yet. 

Karkat finished breaking down the last box in his cardboard pile and shoved it into the mouth of the large orange baler. He closed the door and heard it automatically lock before the machine’s ceiling began to descend, pressing down the boxes inside. He heard it stop briefly and judged how far it had gone down. Not too bad but yeah It would be full after this morning’s truck for sure. Shit just another thing to add to his list, unless Roxy could find someone else to do it? 

He had just added ‘make bale’ to his list of ‘next things’ when he heard the very familiar sound of glass breaking. Then an “OH SHIT” followed by more glass breaking...then another. Fuck. 

Chip stocking had gone fairly fast. As Dave and Roxy broke down boxes and stocked out everything from corn to zesty grub chips, Roxy caught him up on what he ‘actually’ needed to know about the store. 

“John is nice but he loses focus fast so use your newness factor to your advantage while you can before you become old news and he doesn’t give you the time of day. I’d say you got maybe two weeks of quality John time before he’s on to some other sort of project.”

“Project?” 

“Yeah dude, you’re like the human equivalent of his current hyper fixation right now. He wants to look good by training an AGM he hired on his own outside of the company! He needs this to go well, but also, like, as soon as the initial report is in you’re pretty much just gonna fly under his radar” 

“Huh, good to know. Wait, is that what happened to you?” 

“Well, yeah kinda? But also, like, I haven’t been in this position too long, just like 6 months or so. But I don’t think he’s even gonna think about letting me be an AGM until I figure out something big and stand-outish. Or like, I get Jane the regional manager’s attention, which tbh is even harder unless you fuck up. Which is kinda hard but if you _did_ fuck up enough to make Jane look bad, or somone she wants to protect, then oh you better yeet yourself back to Troll Foods.” 

“Haha well then I’ll try not to fuck up.” Dave reached for the last empty chip box and took out his box cutter. A few quick slices and he had it flattened out and ready to go. Easy. 

He flipped his boxcutter in the air, causing it to arc back and fly towards the discontinued rack behind him. 

“OH Shit!”

He reached out to try and grab it but the green swirl of plastic and blade hit a puzzle which had just enough weight to fall and hit the pasta jar next to it. Dave went to grab it but missed and looked up to see the second one fall over as well and slowly roll off the shelf hitting a third on the way down. 

Roxy burst out laughing as Dave looked down at the Jackson Pollock looking piece at his feet. What was left of one of the smashed jars rolled up to Karkat who he guessed had come to investigate the cause of the glass smashing. 

Dave braced himself for Karkat’s yelling. For the guy to call him an absolute moron because he couldn’t even stock out chips without knocking over shit his first morning.

“Need a little help, Strider? I could go grab some spaghetti if you’d like? I think we got some in this morning?” 

Karkat...wasn’t...mad? Spaghetti? Dave watched as Karkat started to chuckle and walk toward Dave. He grabbed the rag out of his back pocket and held it out to him. Dave stared at it for a second and took it. Wiping his glasses first. He smiled putting his glasses back on confidently to see Karkat look at him...fondly? Sure yeah, he’ll take that. Maybe he was growing on the guy. 

“Ha! Yeah and add in some breadsticks too Karkat, you know I’m not just a snack, I’m the whole damn meal.” Karkat rolled his eyes, okay, fondness gone. Shit.

“God I love this guy!” Roxy finished wiping away their tears and bent down to pick up Dave’s formerly green, now red, box cutter. 

“Alright well that was fun. Come on Saucy Strider let’s get this cleaned up. I’ll show you where we keep the floor cleaner.” 

“Oh god do not call him that. He’ll probably take to it or something.” 

“Hell yeah I will! Hey Roxy can I change my name tag after I change my pants?” 

“Sure thing Sauce Boss!” Roxy took the rag from Dave’s hand and dropped it on the floor over the glass to cover the mess. 

“Hey Karkat would you sweep up the glass with the customer service broom while we go grab this?” They asked Karkat before gesturing for Dave to follow them.

“YEP! SURE! NO PROBLEM! HELPS WITH THE RAG OVER IT NOW TOO! THANKS FOR THAT!” 

Dave followed Roxy to the storage closet to grab a broom for the glass, a wet floor sign and a large grey contraption that looked like a grey smart car had decided to leave it’s former life behind and go into the janitorial business. Roxy caught him staring at it and smirked. 

“You guys did have a floor cleaner right? Fancy TrollFoods probably had a nice one.” 

“Uh yeah actually we had a real fancy once. So fancy even that I don’t even know how to work this uh...not as fancy one.” Fuck great job Strider yep just sound real obvious there. 

“Oh yeah? Neat! Here let me show you how. I feel like they can’t be all that dissimilar.”

Dave watched as Roxy in a swirl of hands pulled levels and flipped switches, none of which he actually caught, but it was late enough already and the store would be open soon so...eh that was a problem for future Dave to figure out. Poor future Dave he really had a ‘to figure out list’ piling up at this point. “....but you absolutely can’t pull it up before you turn it off or the brush will go flying off and it’ll be a bitch to put it back on. Got it?” 

Dave half heard that. 

“Yeah one hundred precent.” 

Roxy handed the machine over to Dave and he felt the contraption quake as it spurted out water, swirled it around with what looked like a giant electric toothbrush piece. 

“Move it forward dummy or the water is gonna go everywhere!”

“Right sorry.” Dave pushed it forward and watched the water get sucked back up by the machine. 

“Neat, alright I’ll clean that up and then I’ll come find you.” He felt a bit more confident now. This thing wasn’t so bad. 

“Sweeet. Have fun!” Roxy gave Dave an enthusiastic salute and Dave watched them turn a corner to probably get the store ready for the rest of the morning. 

He pushed forward, the machine was heavy and smelled like shit if he was being honest. How did you even clean this thing? Something else he’d figure out later. 

Dave turned the corner (slowly) to find a wet floor sign and the spread of red beneath it. The glass was gone though so he’d have to thank Karkat for that later. He moved the sign and walked in a slow circle amazed that suddenly the floor was clean below. Alright now to turn it off. Wait. Shit. He watched the puddle gather beneath it again, this time red. If he didn’t move the floor was gonna be a mess all over again...Alright well who said the whole store didn’t need a nice cleaning right?

Karkat was finishing up clearing the floors and getting the u-boats to the back when he noticed Dave was cleaning the store’s floor. He thought huh good for him until he noticed Dave being extra thorough. Hadn’t he just cleaned that area twice already? The store was about to open. Early customers were already walking into the produce section and Karkat had already rung someone up for milk on the fly. What was Dave doing? 

He walked over. 

“Hey Strider I think you missed a spot.” Dave looked up and Karkat saw the perspiration glinting off Dave’s forehead. He tried to ignore it. 

“Did I? Where?”

“That was sarcasm dumbass. The floor’s clean. Put that shit away and help out the rest of the team.”

“Uh, alright.” Karkat turned to leave. 

“Hey Karkat...uh. How do you turn this thing off?” Dave called out in a faux whisper. 

Karkat sighed. He found himself doing that a lot around Dave. He pushed the blonde aside and began to press some buttons (including one that literally just said power) and listened for the brush to stop spinning before he pulled up the levers. He moved the machine to put a rag down and wiped up the residual grey water underneath. 

“Did you not even try and figure this out yourself?” He asked turning to look up at Dave who was just standing over him watching him clean up the floor. 

“I mean I thought about it but Roxy had said something about the brush flying off if you did it wrong and so I...decided the store just needed a good thorough cleaning is all. Hell maybe it would have run out of power!” 

“That’s literally some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard Strider.” 

Dave frowned and looked away. Karkat rose from the floor and handed Dave the gross rag. 

“You can just ask for help you know. People won’t think less of you for asking.” The look Dave gives Karkat when he says that is so pitiable it takes everything in him to not wraps his arms around Dave and pull him close and-- what the fuck is he thinking right now?! No! Absolutely not. 

“Yeah but I just don’t want people thinking I don’t actually belong here or whatever.” Karkat sighs again, god his throat is gonna get sore from being around Dave and not in the, you know what nevermind. 

“Okay sure maybe you’ll seem like a dumbass at times, which you kinda are, but you’re already here and honestly? It’s a lot harder to get fired from this place once you’re in a position like yours. Plus John likes you, so you got that. Just play up the whole ‘It was different at TrollFoods’ thing and you’ll be fine. But don’t waste fucking time acting like a wiggler who doesn’t know how to tell his parents he fucking shit himself.” 

“Karkat you really do have a way with words. Has anyone ever told you that?” Dave took his station at the floor machine again and turned it around, the motion was much easier now that it wasn’t sucking linoleum face. 

“Thanks for the advice though. I appreciate it...and you don’t have to worry. I’ll have you know,” he looked up and into the distance, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” 

“Pfff. How very southern belle of you.” 

“You know it toots!” Dave lowered his glasses and gave Karkat a wink, then hurried off with the floor machine before he could see his reaction. 

A slow stream of Monday morning customers began to flow onto the thoroughly cleaned FreshGrub floor as Karkat finished the first part of his to do list and went back to the office to start his orders. 

What he walked into in the office was seeing Dave walking over to the grocery desk where a ‘very busy’ grocery manager was still sitting and the blonde tapped him on the shoulder. Eridan spun around annoyed, probably thinking it was Karkat pestering him for the computer, until he saw the new face and Karkat watched a smug little smile flicker. Oh no. 

Dave smiled back. “Hi there. My name’s Dave, I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m the new AGM here. My guess is that you’re Eridan the grocery manager here. John’s told me you’re the best in the company! I’m excited to work with you!” 

Karkat had been dreading this moment and it had gone exactly like he thought it would. Eridan could smell weakness a mile away and Dave’s enthustiactic sincerity was like chum in the water. 

“Dave? Strider, yes? Well it’s a pleasure to meet you. Yes you had it right I’m the grocery manager here. Congratulations on the promotion. However, I don’t think I’ve heard your name before. Which store are you from?”

“Oh I’m not from FreshGrub I worked as a manager at TrollFoods for a while.” The lies flowed out of him easily like he believed them, rehearsed them in his bathroom mirror, in the car, in his sleep. Karkat almost believed him for a moment. 

“But I wanted a change of pace. Ever since Crocker Crop bought it the whole vibe changed you know? I wanted to come to a place that didn’t just treat employees like they were just dispensable throw-aways, invested in it’s people you know? Y’all seem like you got that going on here.” 

For all the fluidity of Dave’s lies Eridan still had a smug look on his face. Did he just not take Dave seriously as a person? That seemed right, but there was almost something else there. Maybe Karkat was reading too much into this but…”

“Hmm interesting. I didn’t realize we were hiring managers outside of the company now?” Eridan took the tip of his pen and placed it thoughtfully against the corner of his mouth. “You must be pretty _experienced_ to have been offered a position here.” Eridan took his pen’s tip to his lips and raised an eyebrow. 

Oh. Fuck, of course there it was. Eridan had no fucking bounderies did he? He hadn’t met Dave for a fucking second and the horny bastard was already hitting on him. Karkat suddenly realized he was just standing awkwardly and watching so he decided to just walk right in. He saw Eridan see him though Dave’s back was still turned from him so he couldn’t read his reaction. Did he notice? Did he care? He went over to the invoice folder and began to sort through the papers. 

“Haha, yeah I’ve got experience alright, but ya’ll do it a bit differently here so I’m still figuring out all the nuances and stuff. I may have a few questions here and there for you if you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Why would I mind? We’re all team members here after all, as John so thoughtfully puts it. I would be more than welcome to help you out, anytime.”

“Sweet! I appreciate that! We’ll better get back to it! Nice meeting your Eridan! Let me know if you need any help!” Dave noticed Karkat and looked like he was about to say something before Eridan called back. 

“Absolutely, Thank you David.”

Dave stiffened, and Karkat watched as he turned around to face Eridan. 

“Hey Eridan?” Eridan turned around and Karkat could see his ‘so helpful’ attitude was cracking. 

“Yes David?”

“Yeah about that. Could you not call me David? I sort of hate it.”

“Oh? I’m sorry I just thought it might be nice to have a bit of a nickname between us. Put us on more familiar terms is all. I meant nothing by it but that.”

“Well that’s um, cool and all but I would really appreciate it if you just didn’t do that.”

“Hmm. Alright then, duly noted. Anything else Davi-Dave?”

“Nope. Just that. Thanks Eridan.” 

Dave gave Karkat a slight ‘sup’ nod of acknowledgment before walking out of the office. The air was heavy suddenly and Karkat almost thought about following Dave out until Eridan began speaking. 

“He won’t last long here with that attitude. Can’t take a playful nickname? Not very easy going if you ask me. But who can say honestly, maybe he’ll pick up fast and fall in line. I mean you managed to figure that one out, right Katfish? 

Eridan raised his brow at Karkat and turned away amused at the look of anger suddenly crossing his MIT’s face. He relished any anger Karkat directed his way. Karkat knew this too, but he wasn’t the type to generally hide his discontent. Even if he had eventually learned to hold his tongue he still made it clear how he truly felt, which only furthered his boss’s pitch advances. The sick fuck knew how to subtly get under his subordinate's skin, watching to see if and when he would finally break. Give him any excuse to make him beg to keep his position, in any position he saw fit. Karkat wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. 

“I need the computer Eridan.”

“Oh? Why don’t you ask nicely then?”

“You know what? Nevermind! I’ll use the OPS one.”

“Hmmm will you now? Did you do the price audit?” 

Shit. He was trying to put that off till later but prioritization meant nothing to the gilled fuck in front of him, why did he even bother trying. 

“No, I was going to do it after the invoices and orders were done.”

“Well I’m still in here so why don’t you just get on that now, alright?”

“Fine.” He turned to leave. 

“Oh and Karkat?” 

Karkat stopped in his tracks waiting for Eridan to continue but didn’t bother turning around. 

Eridan paused, waiting. He knew this little game. Sometimes he’d let Karkat play it but no, not today, not this morning. Karkat felt the silence and turned around, obvious frustration framing his form. Eridan saw this and gave him an obvious once over. His arms, specifically his biceps, were now uncovered by the sweatshirt he had taken off from earlier, and his shirt stretched over his chest in a way that suddenly made him feel very exposed. It hadn’t felt all that tight but with Eridan staring him down like this he felt a bit sick. 

“That is all.”

MOTHERFUCKER. Karkat whirled around and left the office. Eridan watched closely as he did. 

Dave did a store walk to the free water station, downing cup after cup of cold water to try and keep the red off his face. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything… No... he had been right. He was just getting more used to standing up for himself was all. 

He had been fifteen the first time he had tried to apply for a job on his own and that was when Dave first saw his birth certificate. 

Dave Elizabeth Strider. _Dave, Dave, Dave._ Why did Bro always call him David then? He had asked him too, which had been a mistake. All he had said was he changed his mind and David sounded better to him and after that he could never find any of his personal docs without having to go through everything, like the very night he’d left. 

After that day he never referred to himself as David again. Which really wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t his name. No documents needed to change, his new drivers license had it all right. But the fact of the matter was that it was just Bro, thinking he could change anything he wanted whenever he wanted to. A sprinkle in the not so funfetti cake of his childhood, but hey, it could have been worse, this was the mantra he had repeated to himself day after day in Huston until he realized it’s what had been keeping him here all along. 

Yeah it could have been worse, sure. But what if it could be better?

Speaking of which this line sure as hell could be. Dave turned the corner to be greeted with a rush at the front end registers. And quickly made his way to one of the open ones. 

He hadn’t had a lot of register training yet (probably because they already assumed he knew how to work one of these things) but the last few times he had rang here hadn’t gone poorly so he felt fine with it. 

The line seemed to be endless as Dave and the rest of the cashiers steadily rang up items and handed receipts. But it felt sort of exhilarating to Dave as he gained confidence with each transaction. He called over the next custie who-oh fuck, tare weight calculations. 

The customer began to set down glass jar after glass jar filled to the brim with dry bulk goods. Dave began to sweat, was it hot in here suddenly, nope? Just him? Great. 

He greeted her and took the first jar trying to remember for the life of him how this process fucking worked. When he had a tour of the store John had shown him the large bulk good wall. A fill your own container and weight it at the front sort of system for all your flour, bean and granola needs. Now he seriously wished he had taken notes on the register part of this. 

He looked back at the screen pressing buttons he thought would make sense as he tried to figure out how to calculate tare weight. And nope that just added five gallons of water...fuuuuck.

Why bring in her own jar away!? It’s not like they didn’t have canned beans! Those dudes were already wet! Perfect for tacos and soups and burritos and oh shit that list was not helping. He looked around to see if there was someone nearby who he hadn’t already asked to explain this to him just as Karkat walked past who noticed the line and then of course, Dave. 

Without hesitating the troll turned on his heels and walked over to an empty register. He grabbed the mic, called three names to the front to help bag, then came over to Dave. 

He looked at the glass jar full of dry beans and then with a small wave of his hand indicated for Dave to move to the side, he did. Karkat cleared the screen and looked at Dave flatly before beginning his instruction. 

“Okay so first you make sure the jar is on the scale. Look it is. Great. Then you go to corrections. Then down and you look for tare override. Oh look there it is, cool. Press that. Then what does the screen say?”

Dave looked at the prompt on the screen. “Um. It says enter item ID.”

Karkat nodded. “Great, what's the ID?” 

Dave wanted to jump out of his skin. There were two numbers on the Jar in front of him written in honestly some of the sloppiest handwriting he had seen. Okay he could do this. He felt the proximity of Karkat next to him. The closest they had really been since...FOCUS. 

“Um the 8647?”

“Right so we type that in. Now what does it say?”

Dave saw Karkat type in the code and then watched as a new prompt came up on the screen. Shit he really hadn’t been doing this right the whole time had he? How the fuck did he get this so wrong?

“It says enter tare.”

“Great so we enter the weight of the jar which will subtract the weight from the amount of beans in it so they don’t have to pay for the weight of a glass jar and beans.’

Dave watched as Karkat entered the jar’s weight into the computer and the price popped up. 

He smiled. “Thanks!”

Karkat didn’t, instead he grabbed the next jar on the belt and put it in front of Dave.

“Now try it without my help.”

Dave went through the steps in his head, complete with Karkat’s ‘daddy isn’t impressed’ tone and watched as the price came up on the screen. Karkat nodded. “Alright looks like you got it. I’m going to open up.”

Karkat didn’t give Dave a second glance as he walked over to a register across from, but facing toward, Dave. Knowing he was there suddenly made Dave feel a bit more relaxed as he went through each jar step by step, checking the screen’s price each time to be sure. 

Dave finished ringing up the woman and apologized for his speed as he handed her back the receipt. She curtly nodded and muttered an ‘it’s fine’ before moving along with her bagged jars. 

As Dave called the next customer over he saw Karkat moving the line along with the speed of a man playing skee ball with only so many seconds left. Did Karkat like skee ball? Would he want to- 

The next customer arrived at Dave’s register and he focused back in enough to ring them up much faster than the one before. Luckily there weren’t too many people left in line now with Karkat calling more baggers and helping at the register himself. 

By the time the rush was over Dave felt exhausted. He checked his phone and realized he had been at the register for an hour somehow now. Fuck no wonder he was tired, oh and he had to piss, like reeealy badly. He made his way past the last register and opened a white door to the bathroom hallway as quickly as possible without it looking like he was actually about to piss himself. It mostly just ended up looking like a scamper and run anyway. Unfortunately, there was now a line here too. Luckily though that line consisted of a very irritated looking Karkat Vantas. 

“Come here often?” Dave said leaning against the wall in a way that he hoped made him look relaxed and not on the verge of sweet yellow release.

Karkat looked at Dave and seriously debated whether or not he could wait to hold it for the rest of his shift. Unfortunately he couldn’t. 

“What do you think Dave?” Karkat refused to look Dave in the eyes, or, fuck, sunglasses, whatever. He wasn’t going to entertain this guy anymore. God did he ever stop talking? Did he even listen to what he had said about them just being coworkers? 

“I think you look like you’re waiting for some sweeeet yellow release. The creme de la creme of canned corn pisses.” His voice dropped low for a moment and he lowered his shades. “After all, I’ve seen what can come out of you. You can hold quite a load there Karkat, sure, but just how _long_ can you hold it?”

“Seriously Strider? I’m not a fucking wiggler. Fuck I can hold my own urine much better than you can hold your fucking tongue that's for sur-” Suddenly Dave was right next to Karkat and the troll's stomach flipped. He could feel the blonde’s breath hot on his ear, hot yes but also wet, moist. Ew he was just breathing into his ear now jesus fucking christ. 

“Pisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss” He turned his head just in time to miss the spit aimed for his ear, getting it on his cheek instead.

Karkat pushed him off and Dave fell against the wall cackling. His laughter rang in the empty hallway as he fell to the floor in a fit. 

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YOU ABSOLUTE DISGUSTING PIECE OF-” Karkat’s tangent fell flat as he suddenly noticed the discoloration running down Dave’s pants. A wet spot had begun to spread at the blonde’s crotch, dripping down the seams of his pale jeans which had begun to take on a much dark shade. He watched as Dave’s look of pure fucking juvinal piss jokery was turned to absolute red embarrassment as he slowly looked down at his jeans. 

“Fuck.” He looked up at Karkat with a heat in his cheeks the troll had seen just once before. 

“Fuck.” Karkat took a breath. He couldn’t fucking believe it. The guy had actually pissed himself. At work. Waiting for the bathroom. And now he was just, sitting in it. Looking up at Karkat like, like an invitation. He felt the heat rise to his own cheeks as he imagined what it might feel like to come down on to the floor with Dave. Lean up against him and gently, teasingly, press into the warm wet of his jeans. Teasing his cock warmed by his own piss. The wet dripping down his thighs, pooled in between his asscheeks. What it might taste like... his thought was interrupted when Dave suddenly leaped up. He watched him walk over to the water fountain on the far side of the hall. What on earth was...oh.

Karkat watched as Dave Strider cupped his finger over the nozzle of the fountain and looked directly at him . He gave the troll an eyebrow wiggle and said “wet t-shirt contest?” before pressing the grey button on the side and spraying his entire body with water. 

“What. The. Fuck?” 

Dave smoothed his now soaking wet shirt down and then leaned over the fountain to take a sip of water before giving a long drawn out “Ahhhhhh.”

Just as the door opened to a displeased looking dad with a diaper bag and two small grubs in a stroller came out. He looked at the both with a confused look and pushed the stroller down the hall and out the door. 

Karkat didn’t waste any time in immediately going into the newly opened bathroom and away from his chaotic soaking mess of a boss. Once he could lock the door behind him the reality of the situation hit him. He had just watched his boss piss himself and then spray water all over himself and the worst part was Karkat had found it so stupidly incredibly hot that for a moment the thought of bringing Dave in here with him had crossed his mind. He took a piss (in the toilet unlike some people) and washed his hands and face. 

Okay, he could do this. Dave Strider wasn’t anything special. Just some guy who got a job and then had decided to take a side gig in annoying Karkat. All he had to do was ignore it right? He could do that. Yeah. He could ignore Dave Strider for sure. 

He dried his hands and walked out to -an empty hall. Why did this disappoint him? 

In the next bathroom over Dave Strider was trying and failing to dry himself with the hand dryer. Fuck, how did you even keep this thing on? The dryer stopped for the fifth time and Dave waved his hands again to restart the timer. He missed the older machines that looked like they would dispense bacon. Those guys were much warmer than the cool air this one was blowing on him. Guys, warmer, blowing, him...Karkat. He thought back to the scene that just played out and a wave of embarrassment hit him all over again. Fuck. 

He really didn’t know what he had been thinking when he had decided to spurt water all over himself really. It had been cold. Freezing actually, and Dave had squealed as he soaked his shirt, pants and, oops yeah the floor too, but hey at least the evidence was concealed. Sure his nipples were hard but at least the water had taken away any boner inducing heat, which he definitely had gotten there for a second. Fucking hell, Karkat Vantas could really do it for him no matter what the occasion. 

When Karkat had looked down at him he had just starred and Dave had starred back. Trying to read each flicker in his red eyes like a view master reel. Hoping to clearly see the image of what Karkat really wanted. Maybe he wanted to taste the sour surprise Dave had just spilled. Maybe he wanted to punish his stupidity, or comfort his embarrassment? Or hell lean down and finger him lubed up with his own piss until he was coming undone in the middle of the hallway. Soaking wet, smelling of urine and still begging for Karkat to stoke him through his- 

Or maybe.

It had just all been in Dave’s head and Karkat really had just looked at him like he was disgusted that his supposed boss had just pissed himself in front of him. Fuck why did he have to have piss daydreams about a hunk of a man who was much more willing to face a meat section than face HIS meat section?!

Damn, he really was a mess wasn’t he? He had said he would take this job seriously and here he was flirting with a man who couldn’t give a shit about him and literally pissing himself over it. 

He thought back to the clubs in Houston and Bro chastening his mistakes, his enthusiasm. Asking him if he cared enough about his ‘internship’ to even take it seriously, to try and act professional? The thought made him sick and tired and he felt the chill of his soaking wet embarrassment of a reality set in. He couldn’t keep this up. He had to at least try to forget Karkat if he wanted to keep this job and that meant avoiding him unless he had to. He was pretty sure that’s what Karkat wanted anyway. Eventually he’d even get better at the job and probably wouldn’t need Karkat to sweep in and help him out like he did up front before. Yeah, he could do this. He took a deep breath lost to the sound of the hand dryer that continued to drone on, slowly drying him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Fay_the_gay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fay_the_gay/pseuds/Fay_the_gay)  
> as always for editing whatever crazy antics I decide to write. If you want a little bit more piss (as a treat) read her Rose/Dave fic  
> "Freud's Wet Dream" which I truly loved every second of.


End file.
